Delaware News

Student booted from Turning Point USA chapter for chanting 'white power' in video

Charlie Kirk, a speaker for national conservative group Turning Point USA, gives his speech on Friday, Feb 2, 2018, at the Lory Student Center on campus at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colo. (Photo: Timothy Hurst/The Coloradoan)

LAS VEGAS – A viral video clip showing a member of the University of Nevada Las Vegas’s Turning Point USA chapter shouting “white power” and using a white supremacist hand sign has led the conservative group to ban him.

On Thursday, the video appeared in the Twitter feed of @igd­_news – a news platform pushing "a revolutionary anarchist perspective" – and showed an unidentified man and woman sitting on what appears to be a bed.

The woman then uses a racist epithet to degrade black people. Both the man and woman hold up a hand symbol similar to the “OK” sign. In recent years, far-right extremists and white supremacists have appropriated the gesture.

“(Expletive) ‘em all, (expletive) ‘em all, that’s right,” says a voice off-camera. What appears to be the middle finger of the cameraman drops into the frame as the video ends.

As of Saturday, the video has generated more than 4.5 million views and led Turning Point USA to release a statement on its own Twitter feed about the man featured in the video:

“As soon as the video in question came to the attention of Turning Point USA staff, we swiftly and permanently removed the student from any current or future involvement with our organization,” a statement said. “His comments were abhorrent, un-American and disqualifying.”

The USA TODAY Network could not reach UNLV staff for comment on the incident, but a university spokesman did publish this statement on Twitter:

“A video of an individual identified as a UNLV student has been widely shared on social media,” the statement said. “The abhorrent views and language expressed in the video are antithetical to the values of diversity and inclusion that we espouse at UNLV every day.”

A video of an individual identified as a UNLV student has been widely shared on social media. The abhorrent views and language expressed in the video are antithetical to the values of diversity and inclusion that we espouse at UNLV every day.

— UNLV (@unlv) May 10, 2019

Founded in 2012 by conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, Turning Point USA has more than 1,300 chapters dotting high school and college campuses across the country.

Follow Ed Komenda on Twitter: @ejkomenda

Show ThumbnailsShow CaptionsLast SlideNext Slide

Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/05/12/turning-point-usa-las-vegas-white-power-sign/1183401001/Read More